A new article about how the Obama administration tracked the movements and correspondence of a Fox News reporter led to a fresh round of condemnation by journalists on Monday.

The Washington Post published an explosive story about the Justice Department's monitoring of James Rosen, a Fox News reporter based in Washington. Rosen allegedly spoke to Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department contractor, for a story about North Korea's nuclear program. The Justice Department charged Kim with violating the Espionage Act for his contact with Rosen.

Kim's case has already been condemned by critics of the White House's hyper-aggressive approach to leaks, but the details of the DOJ's tracking of Rosen have not been known until now. The Post's Ann E. Marimow laid out the intensity of that monitoring in her article:

The Justice Department used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal emails.

That goes above and beyond what the Justice Department did when it monitored the Associated Press. There, it looked at phone records, not the actual contents of emails.

Perhaps more chilling, the Post reported that, in order to justify its search warrants for Rosen's private correspondence, the Justice Department labeled Rosen a "co-conspirator" with Kim because he made an arrangement with him about how to get him information:

Reyes wrote that there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.” That fact distinguishes his case from the probe of the AP, in which the news organization is not the likely target.

It's not clear how different these arrangements, which the Post wrote involved things like code names, were from the elaborate arrangements that Bob Woodward made with Deep Throat. Journalists reacted with particular alarm to the notion that Rosen was an "abettor" simply because he pushed for a source to give him information:

Ryan Lizza @RyanLizza

Case against Fox's Rosen, in which O admin is criminalizing reporting, makes all of the other "scandals" look like giant nothing burgers.

Eli Lake @EliLake

Serious idea. Instead of calling it Obama's war on whistleblowers, let's just call it what it is: Obama's war on journalism.

Glenn Greenwald ✔ @ggreenwald

To address a widely believed myth: except in very rare circumstances, it is *not* a crime for journalists to report classified information

There has long been evidence that some government prosecutors do not consider journalists to have heightened levels of protection. In January, for instance, lawyers prosecuting military whistleblower Bradley Manning said that, had he passed information to the New York Times instead of WikiLeaks, he would still be "aiding the enemy." The government has also tried to make the case in the past that WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange could be indicted as a co-conspirator with Manning for receiving his information.

UPDATE: Fox News responded to the Rosen investigation in a statement to TVNewser:

“We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter. In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

@ggreenwald
Glenn Greenwald
Accusing James Rosen of committing crimes - for basic reporting - may be the most dangerous thing the Obama DOJ has done yet

@dangillmor
Dan Gillmor
All journalists, of all political leanings, should be coming loud and hard to the defense of Fox News' Rosen. http://t.co/WAiuByTuTy

@HuffPostMedia
HuffPost Media
Dear many of our commenters: this is one time when you should be siding with Fox News http://t.co/hhPhw4N3XI

Cliffs: You know you done ****ed up when even the Huffington Post is supporting Fox News.

the big o will not be in the dog house long, the liberal media still loves him...

it's just a little lovers' spat...

Possible. However, if more of these instances continue to pop up they may completely turn on him.

It will be interesting to see if anyone else in the media has been targeted. Hell I was just reading that this Rosen situation also included another reporter and a producer. I would not be surprised in the least to see more of this abuse of power come to light. If so, things could get a might interesting.....

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"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, and disregard of all the rules."

the big o will not be in the dog house long, the liberal media still loves him...

it's just a little lovers' spat...

Perhaps, but this guy keeps finding himself in hot water. One thing the media doesn't seem to warm up to is people going out of their way to **** with one of their own, even if they are ****ing with "the other side."

On a side note, I expect Barry to milk the hell out of the Moore, OK twister to try to deflect as much of the heat off him as he can. It just seems like his style.

Perhaps, but this guy keeps finding himself in hot water. One thing the media doesn't seem to warm up to is people going out of their way to **** with one of their own, even if they are ****ing with "the other side."

On a side note, I expect Barry to milk the hell out of the Moore, OK twister to try to deflect as much of the heat off him as he can. It just seems like his style.

Just like he did Sandy

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Quote:

Originally Posted by |Zach|

All kinds of people vote. Not enough of those people think highly enough of Trump to make him President but all kinds of people vote.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Donger

So, if they were polling better than Trump and the primary goal was to prevent Hillary from becoming POTUS, perhaps it would have been a better strategic decision to nominate someone who actually had a chance of beating her and preventing that than nominating Donald Trump.

Geez, he shows up after one of these things and people bitch. He doesn't show up and people bitch.

If he weren't always trying to hide from some potential scandal.....

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Quote:

Originally Posted by |Zach|

All kinds of people vote. Not enough of those people think highly enough of Trump to make him President but all kinds of people vote.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Donger

So, if they were polling better than Trump and the primary goal was to prevent Hillary from becoming POTUS, perhaps it would have been a better strategic decision to nominate someone who actually had a chance of beating her and preventing that than nominating Donald Trump.